


half in wool, half in winter

by angelheadedhipster



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Dogs, Guilt, M/M, aaaaangst, fall - Freeform, infirmaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedhipster/pseuds/angelheadedhipster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was one of those fall days that happened sometimes at Hogwarts; perfect sunny skies and warm enough during the day to take your shirt off, if you were sitting directly in the sun. Which Sirius was. The sun was warming his stomach muscles, his shirt was crumpled up over his head, and he watched the red light on the backs of his eyelids and aggressively did not think about Remus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	half in wool, half in winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kirenamuln](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirenamuln/gifts).



You have woken. But no one has woken. You are changed,  
but the light of change is bitter, the changing  
is the threshold into winter.  
Traveler, rememberer, sleeper,  
tonight, as you slumber where the dead are, if the moon’s hands  
should discover you through fire, lie down  
and listen to her hold you, the moon who has been away  
so long now, the lost moon with her silver lips  
and whisper, her body half in winter,  
half in wool.  
~ from “Testimony,” by Joseph Fasano

 

It was one of those fall days that happened sometimes at Hogwarts; perfect sunny skies and warm enough during the day to take your shirt off, if you were sitting directly in the sun. Which Sirius was. The sun was warming his stomach muscles, his shirt was crumpled up over his head, and he watched the red light on the backs of his eyelids and aggressively did not think about Remus.

“Thinking about Remus?” said a girl’s voice above him.

“No,” said Sirius, very quickly.

Lily laughed. “Liar,” she said, and reached down and took the shirt off his eyes.

Sirius squinted up at her, the frizz of her orange hair glowing in the sun. He couldn’t read her face at all in the shadows, but he was sure she was smiling. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Lily laughed again. “Sure, you never want to talk about it,” she said, folding her legs and sitting down next to him. “It’s so gorgeous out right now. Hard to remember that we’re going to be freezing our arses off tonight.”

“It’s so warm. Take your shirt off,” Sirius said. “It feels great.”

Lily rolled her eyes and lay back, stretching out in the sun. “I’m sure it does.”

They lay there for a minute, absorbing the warmth. Sirius continued to think very hard about not thinking about Remus.

“Where is he?” wondered Lily. “I know you know.”

“I don’t- the library,” Sirius sighed. “Remus detector,” he said, tapping his temple. “I can’t help myself.” It was like he was pulled towards the other boy at all times. Even when he tried not to think about it, a part of his brain always knew where Remus was, what he was doing, who he was with. He stared up at the sun now, feeling vaguely annoyed.

“Have you talked to him yet?” Lily asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Sirius said. “We sat together at breakfast, he was at Quidditch practice, we made plans for tonight-”

“I mean, talk to him talk to him.”

“I’m not doing that,” Sirius said. “And if I did, when? How?”

“I don’t know, maybe when you _wake up in his bed_ in the mornings?” Lily was looming over him now, her eyes glittering fiercely.

“How do you know about that?” Sirius sputtered. “Also, i mean, it’s not like that; he just gets cold, and I am a dog, anyway.”

“James,” said Lily, pointedly ignoring the rest of what he said.

“James knows?!?” Sirius almost screeched.

“You prat, you all sleep in the same dorm. Of course he knows that you turn into a dog and climb into your best friend’s bed sometimes. How could he not?”

“Oh, fuck. ,” Sirius said, covering his eyes with his hands. “What did he say?”

“I don’t get you,” Lily said. “You are perfectly happy to ogle your best friend’s girlfriend and tell her to take her shirt off, but are terrified of him finding out about your all-consuming crush for your single, non-attached, and perfectly available other best friend.”

“It’s not all-consuming,” Sirius said, through his hands, which were now covering his whole face. “Besides,” he said, taking his hands away and turning towards her with a leer. “You like it when I ogle you.”

“You’re an arsehole,” Lily said, cheerfully. She lay back down, eyes closed, and they both let the fall sun warm their faces.

“Still, I don’t get it,” she said.

“I know,” said Sirius. “I just...I don’t want to mess up what we have. The Marauders. And I don’t know what James would say. What if he thinks it’s weird or perverted? He understands the girls-”

“Ah yes,” said Lily. “The girls. All the many, many girls. I also don’t get that.”

“It’s just...it’s different, ok?” Sirius said. “The girls are easy. James understands the girls. The girls don’t risk anything. The girls are not...they don’t...it’s just different.”

Lily didn’t say anything, just nodded.

“I hate this,” Sirius said. “I hate this stupid feeling, I keep pushing it down and trying to make it go away and it doesn’t. I just want more. Want him more.”

“I know, Sirius,” said Lily quietly. “And, you’re worried about what he’d say. Remus.”

“I haaaate this,” he whined.

Lily propped one arm up, looking down at him.

“What are you grinning at?” he asked.

“You,” she said. “Look at you, you’re so sulky and smitten. It’s adorable.”

“Shut up,” said Sirius. “It gets cold at night. I’m warmer as the dog.”

“You’re a dope,” Lily said, cheerfully.

“You just like me because I’m so good-looking,” Sirius said, closing his eyes again.

“That’s probably it,” Lily said, her voice getting farther away as she lay down too. “So what is you boys’ excuse for getting roaringly drunk tonight?”

Sirius laughed. “Who says we need an excuse?”

Lily laughed, too.

“But since you asked, we’re working on the Map tonight,” Sirius said.

“Oh, man, I love that map,” Lily said. “Not sure what the Map has to do with how much Firewhiskey James bought, but…”

“Well, it’s cold at night,” Sirius said.

Lily laughed loudly, the sound travelling up into the blue sky so brightly Sirius almost thought he could see it, bursts of white bubbles.

“We’re going into the Forest. There’s some parts of it that we don’t really understand, and Peter thinks there is a tunnel that starts under a tree that goes into the kitchen. Which would be useful.”

“Sure, it would. And the whiskey is necessary.”

“Necessary,” said Sirius. He was drifting, he could feel it, spacing out on the sun and his friend next to him, and thinking about the night ahead - whiskey in his belly, crashing around the forest with his friends, and Remus, and Remus laughing after he’d been drinking, and Remus’s long legs running ahead of him, and Remus looking all cute bundled up in his too-big-for-him coat…

“Talk to him,” said Lily, her voice thicker and spacey, drifting, too.

“Nope,” said Sirius.

“Well then, kiss him,” she said.

“Oh, god,” said Sirius. His stomach tightened and the wanting overtook him, that delicious spiral of nerves coming up from his toes through his stomach and into his throat, the idea of pressing his lips against Remus’s and feeling his skin under Sirius’s hands, pulse jumping and hands grasping…

He groaned. “Hate this.”

“Adorable,” Lily murmured.

+++

Sirius walked up the stairs in Gryffindor tower, trying to balance all the tea cakes the house elves had given him in his arms, along with one lone apple. The single contribution to nutrition for the night - James’s idea. As if one apple would counteract all the drinking, and all the cakes, and Peter was probably high by now…

He heard someone - probably James - erupt in laughter as he opened the door to their room, and dropped a cake as he juggled the doorknob.

“Dibs,” said Peter, scooting across the floor to pick it up.

“All yours, Wormy,” said James, righteously. “I will eat an apple.”

“You’re a twat,” said Sirius, stepping over Peter to walk into the room. James was sprawled out on his bed, a glass of brown liquid balanced precariously on his sternum. Peter was contemplatively eating the cake that had fallen on the floor. And Remus was sitting at the desk in the corner, his eyes glued to the exact level of firewhiskey and ice in the glass in front of him.

“Oh, Sirius!” said Remus, looking up. “Hey! It’s you!”

Sometimes Sirius tried to convince himself that the Remus detector, the constant wondering about the other boy and the wanting to know where he was, to be where he was, was just concern. He was just worried about his friend, wanted to make sure he was safe. If he was around Remus, then he would know if he was in trouble. That was all the pull was. Really.

That little flutter his heart was doing now, that was just relief. Just the Remus detector going off, saying “here he is here he is,” and calming down. Totally.

“Hey,” said Sirius, and his voice was totally, totally normal. “Tea cakes?”

“Hell yeah,” said James, picking up his drink and listing over towards Sirius.

“I want two,” said Remus. “Here’s your drink, Peter. If you can get yourself off the floor to reach it.”

“Ugh, I’m not even that high, guys,” said Peter, but didn’t move.

“Where’s my drink, Moony?” Sirius asked, sitting in the chair in front of the desk, his leg near enough to Remus that it could be an accident if they touched, or could not. He felt himself leaning towards Remus, a familiar feeling, as if there was a magnet just under Remus’s skin and Sirius was pulled towards him, at all times. It was unstoppable, ineffable, hopeless to resist. Leaning closer felt right, natural, healthy. Leaning away hurt.

“I always make yours last,” Remus said. “You like them the coldest, and that way the ice doesn’t melt as much before you drink it.”

Sirius had no response to that. A cold drink sounded nice; his entire body was getting warmer and warmer.

“Here,” Remus said, and handed Sirius a glass. The ice cubes clinked, and their fingers brushed past each other, almost, barely.

Sirius felt like there were lines of fire shooting from his fingers to his stomach, and lower. He brought the glass to his lips and downed it in one gulp, the fire of the alcohol mixing with the cold ice and the fire in his stomach and the heat in the room and the crisp air outside. He felt drunk already, heady with expectation.

“Whoa, Padfoot,” said James.

“The night is young, but it’s not getting any younger,” said Sirius, and held his glass back out to Remus. “Let’s do this.”

Remus was grinning at him, but Sirius was focused on the other boy’s fingers on the bottle, long and delicate, the skin so pale underneath. Remus was always the bartender; he cared the most, was the most attentive, measured and liked making new recipes and coming up with things. Sirius loved watching Remus do things he was good at. Loved watching those fingers as they held a bottle, a pen, a wand…

Sirius tore his gaze away and looked out the window, over Remus’s head. There was a sliver of a moon, glowing yellow in the dark sky. The whole sky was black, with white and orange flames, twinkling stars. The moon looked so real, like you could reach out and touch it, like it would melt like warm butter in your hand. It looked cozy, perfect, magical. Like nothing could go wrong.

+++

“I’m so so so so sorry, Remus,” Sirius said. Maybe Remus couldn’t hear him. He didn’t know if Remus could hear him. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Sirius didn't feel drunk anymore. His head was pounding, and he felt like he was seeing everything sharper. The white sheets on the infirmary bed, the bare walls. The cut on Remus’s forehead, blood drying in a line down his temple. The werewolf’s closed eyes, grayish looking, hollows underneath them the color of a rainy September morning.

"Remus, I'm sorry."

Nothing. No reaction. No twitch, no blink.

"There wasn't even anything there. Haha." Sirius forced the laugh, trying for a different tone, even as he felt like his heart was sinking into his feet. “Those noises we heard were just each other. So we were running from nothing. Heh.” The chuckle sounded dry and cracked in his throat. “Pretty typical of us, I guess.”

Nothing. The sound of the wind on the windows, of Remus’s slow (so slow too slow) breathing. Not even Madam Pomfrey was around.

Sirius closed his eyes and listened, listened with senses that were more than human, and he’d started shifting almost before he recognized it, almost before the rational part of him could confirm that there was no one nearby to see. He felt his senses getting sharper as he shifted, the tingling of fur growing, analysis and intellect floating into the back of his mind.

Sirius/Padfoot lay next to his friend on the floor, nuzzling the hand that draped over the side of the bed occasionally. Being a dog was better, and worse. Better because his mind spun less, thought less about what he could have done different, said different, if he could have waited more for Remus when climbing over the wall, if he should have caught him, shouldn’t have drunk so much so fast. That part of him was quiet. Worse because in the quiet the dog’s senses were clearer, and emotions too. Sadness. Want. Guilt.

_Wake up, Moony. Wake up._

He stayed as a dog until he heard footsteps approaching; he thought Remus seemed calmer, less twitchy, when a large animal was next to him. Maybe on some subconscious level he associated Padfoot with safety. Maybe it was from all those nights of sleeping next to Remus as a dog, rolling ever so slightly closer as the night wore on, shifting back to human sometimes just to see, just to watch their bodies next to each other, to wonder what would happen if he ran his human fingers down Remus’s human hips….

“He should have been awake by now,” said Madam Pomfrey. “Oh, you’re still here?”

“Yes,” said Sirius, shortly. “Why isn’t he awake?”

Madam Pomfrey shrugged, unconcerned. “Could be anything. Maybe he’s really tired. Were you boys drinking? That could make him pass out for longer, maybe.”

“Absolutely not,” Sirius lied through his teeth, feeling a bit relieved. Why had they drank so much? Why had they done any of this?

“He fell off a wall, you said? How did that happen?”

Sirius froze, completely unable to remember the elaborate story he and James and Peter had concocted while bringing Remus to the infirmary. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and the pounding had started spinning, like his head was moving around even as he kept it still.

“We thought we were being chased,” he said. Which was, unfortunately, true. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Madam Pomfrey, to her endless credit, did not dignify that one with a response.

“Nothing left to do now but wait for him to wake up,” she said. “And…”

Sirius tore his eyes away from Remus’s face for the first time since getting there, and looked at her. Madam Pomfrey had a pumpkin pin on the collar of her nurse’s robes. This seemed completely incomprehensible to Sirius at this moment.

“He’ll be all right,” Madam Pomfrey said, her voice somewhat soft. “He’ll be fine.”

“Th-thank you?” said Sirius.

Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes, and walked out.

Sirius found he couldn’t look at Remus’s face anymore, couldn’t spend any more time memorizing the blood on his knuckles or the growing purple bruise on the top of his head. He looked out the window, dawn starting to come up across the sky over Hogwarts. It would be another gorgeous fall day, crisp and cool and perfect, leaves blowing directly into your face as you walked around, robes swirling at your feet in the brisk breezes. Ugh. Of course it was.

There was a noise from the bed, a rustle and a motion. Sirius’s head snapped around, staring at the prone figure. He looked exactly the same, and then, as Sirius watched, those hollow eyelids lifted up, slowly slowly, as if the weight of the world was on them.

“Oh,” said Remus. “It’s you. Hey.”

“Oh my god, Moony!” Sirius was standing now, he wasn’t sure how that had happened. He was as close to the bed as he dared now, but he didn’t want to touch Remus (he always wanted to touch Remus) what if he was hurt more, what if he was mad.

“How are you feeling? Are you all right? I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I’m so sorry, Remus. There wasn’t anyone there, I was so drunk and we were running and I didn’t realize you weren’t behind me until I doubled back and I’m so sorry,” Sirius was babbling now, sputtering, “I’m so sorry, are you okay? Does it hurt? Where does it hurt? Do you want me to go? I’m so sorry.”

Remus was smiling at him, the same smile he used whenever Sirius started to talk too much. “I’m ok,” he said. “I don't want you to go. I just feel tired, mostly. Thirsty?”

“Oh, here, here!” Sirius grabbed the cup of water that Madam Pomfrey had left, all but spilling it on Remus as he handed it to him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” said Remus, and drank his water. Sirius stared at him, at the blood on his cheeks and the scratches running down his neck, at the bluish cast of the skin under his fingernails.

“It’s ok, Sirius,” said Remus. “I’m ok."

“Ok?” Sirius said, because he had nothing else.

“It was worth it,” Remus said. His voice was lower now, and his eyes were closing. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m still sorry,” said Sirius. “And…” He stopped himself, stopped his mouth before he said something stupid like, “I just want you to be alright,” or “I want to be with you all the time.”

“Worth it,” said Remus, and his breathing deepened, even as the smile stayed on his face.

Sirius reached out and touched the sheet next to his friend’s arm, checking for a reaction. Remus’s eyes were closing now, the lashes fluttering down over his cheeks. Sirius’s fingers reached out a little further, skating up Remus’s arm, past his palm. The werewolf felt too hot under him, his skin smooth.

He leaned a little further forward, his left hand hand now resting on Remus’s shoulder (the one he hadn’t fallen on), the right reaching up to touch his temple, right at the spot that was cut open. There was a bright shock of crimson there, so bright Sirius almost couldn’t look at it, and darker duller shades around, where the blood had smeared. Sirius’s right hand went there, gently wiping away the blood, stroking and soothing as Remus drifted off to sleep.

Remus’s head moved forward, maybe, just a little, as if he was leaning into Sirius’s touch. As if he was pulled toward Sirius’s hand, as if moving closer to him felt natural, healthy, right, while moving away hurt.

Maybe. Or maybe he was just shifting, as he fell asleep, golden dawn light creeping over his closed eyes.


End file.
